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India Today
30-04-2025
- General
- India Today
India's young adults and elderly are 'flourishing': Global well-being study
In India, youths and older adults are flourishing more those middle-aged, a study of over 2 lakh people across 22 countries has Global Flourishing Study, conducted by researchers from institutes, including Harvard University and the University of Bremen, Germany, is envisaged to understand factors that govern the well-being of an individual and a was defined as a state in which all aspects of a person's life are In Wave 1 of the study, questionnaire responses from 202,898 people from 22 countries, spanning six continents, were analysed. Findings are published in the journal Nature."Flourishing tends to increase with age in many countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Sweden and the United States , but not in all. In India, Egypt, Kenya and Japan, patterns are somewhat more U-shaped," the authors questionnaires surveyed people about aspects of well-being, such as happiness, health, meaning and relationships, along with demographic, social, political, religious factors and childhood men and women around the world reported similar patterns, greater differences were found in certain countries men in Brazil reported more flourishing compared to women, and women in Japan more thanFurther, those married were found to report a higher flourishing, compared to those single, in most in India and Tanzania, married people reported lower flourishing than those study also found that people employed reported higher flourishing than those not. Self-employment, retirement and being a student related with more satisfaction than being employed in countries, including India, Japan, Israel and authors also found that young people around the world "are not doing as well as they used to".Despite country-wise differences in patterns of satisfaction with age, "the overall global pattern is troubling", they added that more data collected over time will help resolve if these patterns are an 'age effect' or a 'cohort effect'.In India, housing, government approvals, political voice and city satisfaction are the country's strengths, whereas education, taking little interest in life, along with financial anxieties are areas that need attention, the analysis Global Flourishing Study is expected to help understand 'flourishing' in general, especially in non-Western contexts. It is also expected to uncover which patterns are culturally specific and which more study is aimed at supporting and expanding upon findings from similar studies such as the World Happiness Report.
Hindustan Times
30-04-2025
- Health
- Hindustan Times
Youths, older adults in India 'flourishing' more than those middle-aged: Global study
New Delhi, In India, youths and older adults are flourishing more those middle-aged, a study of over 2 lakh people across 22 countries has suggested. The 'Global Flourishing Study', conducted by researchers from institutes, including the US Harvard University and University of Bremen, Germany, is envisaged to understand factors that govern the well-being of an individual and a community. Flourishing was defined as a state in which all aspects of a person's life are good. In Wave 1 of the study, questionnaire responses from 202,898 people from 22 countries, spanning six continents, were analysed. Findings are published in the journal Nature. "Flourishing tends to increase with age in many countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Sweden and the United States , but not in all. In India, Egypt, Kenya and Japan, patterns are somewhat more U-shaped," the authors wrote. The questionnaires surveyed people about aspects of well-being, such as happiness, health, meaning and relationships, along with demographic, social, political, religious factors and childhood experiences. While men and women around the world reported similar patterns, greater differences were found in certain countries men in Brazil reported more flourishing compared to women, and women in Japan more than Further, those married were found to report a higher flourishing, compared to those single, in most countries. However, in India and Tanzania, married people reported lower flourishing than those single. The study also found that people employed reported higher flourishing than those not. Self-employment, retirement and being a student related with more satisfaction than being employed in countries, including India, Japan, Israel and Poland. The authors also found that young people around the world "are not doing as well as they used to". Despite country-wise differences in patterns of satisfaction with age, "the overall global pattern is troubling", they said. They added that more data collected over time will help resolve if these patterns are an 'age effect' or a 'cohort effect'. In India, housing, government approvals, political voice and city satisfaction are the country's strengths, whereas education, taking little interest in life, along with financial anxieties are areas that need attention, the analysis found. The Global Flourishing Study is expected to help understand 'flourishing' in general, especially in non-Western contexts. It is also expected to uncover which patterns are culturally specific and which more universal. The study is aimed at supporting and expanding upon findings from similar studies such as the World Happiness Report.
Irish Times
27-04-2025
- Science
- Irish Times
‘The ground split ... we decided to leave': Families in Ethiopia displaced by earthquakes face uncertain future
The earth shook below Zahab Mohammad's feet while rocks began rolling down the foothills of the volcanic Mount Dofan, where she lived in Ethiopia 's northern Afar Region. After a 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit Afar last December, a series of tremors continued to shake Mohammad's village of Mugasa. After two weeks she left along with 400 other families. 'The ground split near my house and that was the moment we decided to leave,' says Mohammad (22), who was three months pregnant at the time. 'We think it's a punishment from god; that god is angry with us.' Boru Tedecho (36), a village leader from Mugasa, remembers a tremor when he was a child but nothing on the scale of the recent earthquake. He says members of his village cannot return to Mount Dofan as the volcano is emitting noxious gas. 'The smell that's coming out of the volcano is very toxic and nothing is growing there,' says Tedecho. 'We will not have grazing land for our cattle ... animals are struggling to survive in that area. Even the birds cannot fly over.' READ MORE Some 55,000 people were displaced by more than a dozen earthquakes and tremors which began in September 2024 in Afar, according to local authorities, while 20,000 were displaced in neighbouring Oromia, where Tedecho and Mohammad now live in a camp. Dr Ameha Atnafu Muluneh, a geology researcher at the University of Bremen, says the earthquakes and tremors were caused by movement beneath the Earth's crust caused by magma intrusion which also reactivated other faults in the surrounding region, intensifying the scale of the earthquakes. 'Nobody knows what will happen in the future, so nobody can assure the people that it's safe to go back home, because this can happen anytime,' says Muluneh. 'We know that this region is quite active.' Women and children in a tent for displaced people in Oromia, Ethiopia. Photograph: Hannah McCarthy Mount Dofan is the location of one of two dozen volcanoes which lie across the Afar region, a meeting point for three tectonic plates and one of the world's most active rift systems. Eventually, in millions of years, scientists say that these three plates will pull away from each other, cleaving East Africa off from the rest of the African continent while forming a new ocean basin. While this process slowly takes place, cracks deep in the Earth's crust in Afar can occur through which magma rises up, either erupting through volcanoes or cooling beneath the crust's surface. These plate movements mostly occur at a pace of a few millimetres annually, occasionally causing tremors. Muluneh says one way to manage therisk from earthquakes in Afar is to have a dense network of seismic and GPS stations which would closely monitor the movement of magma beneath the surface. If properly implemented and resourced, such a monitoring system could provide communities with up to several days' warning if an eruption is likely to happen. 'But this is logistically quite difficult for Ethiopia,' says Muluneh. December's earthquake struck as the Afar region was already struggling with drought, flooding, civil war and resource-based conflict, and pushed many communities into aid dependency. Da-Ido camp houses 3,500 families in Awash-Fentale, Ethiopia. Photograph: Hannah McCarthy At Da-Ido camp , which houses 3,500 families in Awash-Fentale, Hadjera Mohammad Aleeyu (40), says she never needed aid until the earthquake forced her to leave her livestock and home in Adi Haboor. Barnabas Asura, the area manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, says the NGO has introduced a cash support programme which provides households with certain vulnerabilities with about €90 for a three-month period. So far, 580 households displaced by the earthquake have received the payment, but Asura says the Norwegian refugee council has identified 4,735 households in extreme need of cash assistance based on criteria including malnourishment of children, number of elders and household size. A camp outside Awash town called Adis Ra'ey houses 4,500 displaced families. The camp has poor water and sanitation services, with about one toilet for every 230 households. Meanwhile, water shortages mean residents have reduced the number of times they wash themselves, clothes and utensils to conserve water for drinking in Afar, one of the world's hottest regions. Aid workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council, say they are concerned about the risk of cholera spreading across the camp, particularly when it floods during the rainy season. Three of the camps in Afar and Oromia received funding from the Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM), a €12 million partnership funded by the EU humanitarian aid office and Irish Aid designed to quickly respond to humanitarian crises in Ethiopia. RRM funding for the three camps is due to end this month, but the mass displacement created by the earthquakes has become a protracted problem, with affected communities living in poor conditions in camps but unwilling to return home without assurances regarding their safety. The Ethiopian parliament introduced a new tax on all workers in March to fill the gap created by the cuts imposed by US president Donald Trump on USAid, Ethiopia's lead partner for development and humanitarian effort. The cuts have sent a shock through Ethiopia's aid sector, which received more than €1 billion in US funding in 2023, including financial backing for an estimated 5,000 health workers. 'Everyone is reviewing their capacity for 2025,' says Olivier Beucher who leads the EU humanitarian aid office in Ethiopia. Beucher says the US aid cuts go far beyond any reductions imposed following the global financial crisis in 2008. 'I've never seen this before.'
USA Today
13-02-2025
- Science
- USA Today
What can we learn by listening to icebergs?
On a special episode (first released on February 12, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: Icebergs are bellwethers of environmental changes. Their formation, movement and melting offer insights into some of the most extreme areas of the cryosphere, such as Antarctica, Greenland and the Arctic Ocean. Scientists have long monitored icebergs because of their role in regulating our climate. But what do the sounds they make reveal? Geophysicist Vera Schlindwein, professor of polar and marine seismology at the University of Bremen in Germany, joins The Excerpt to discuss these breathtaking frozen wonders. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
New European
27-01-2025
- Politics
- New European
The election that wasn't in Belarus
The question at the heart of this election was never who would win, but by how much the incumbent president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenka, would steal the vote. The answer came on Sunday. He won 86.8% of the vote: a new record for the president's 30-year rule. Lukashenka barely campaigned at all, telling factory workers he was simply too busy. In reality, vote rigging made the result a foregone conclusion. Lukashenka's closest rival, Sergei Syrankov of the Communist party, took 3.2% of the vote. 'We understand who'll be the winner in this race,' Syrankov told Russian state media. 'We fully support that.' Activists were threatened by security services in the run up to the election. Those are not idle threats – 1,265 political prisoners already behind bars. No invitation was sent to Europe's main election observation body, the OSCE, and voters were banned from photographing their ballot papers – a tactic previously used by opposition activists to check whether votes were being fairly counted. 'These are not elections but a 'special operation' to illegally cling to power,' said Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the Belarusian opposition. She remains in exile after standing against Lukashenka in the country's 2020 elections. Her husband, Sergei, was jailed in Belarus for 18 years after organising anti-government protests. 'We will never accept [Lukashenka].' Lukashenka's stage-managed victory was intended to show a government firmly in control. During the last elections, five years ago, thousands of pro-democracy protesters flooded the streets in defiance of the regime. Although they were violently dispersed by police, the memory of that protest lingers. But while Minsk tries to project an image of stability, the reality of different. State oppression is only intensifying, says Olga Dryndova, a political scientist at the University of Bremen and editor of Belarus-Analysen . 'Belarus is still not North Korea, but there are signs of a state trying to control all the spheres of society, including the private sphere,' she says. 'Elections now play a different role: it's not about trying to show a façade of democracy, it's about showing control over society, control over the elections, and control over the political system.' As well as the pseudo-democratic sheen of the vote itself, Minsk released more than 250 political prisoners in the run-up to the election, a signal of willingness for fresh dialogue with the West. 'Lukashenka wants to try and win back some legitimacy: for [the West] to call him the president and talk directly to him. As a rule, a lot of countries don't do that now because they don't recognise him as president,' says Dr. Andrew Wilson, a historian at University College London. Such recognition is not only a matter of pride for Lukashenka himself: it would give Minsk a greater chance of shedding some of the sanctions currently imposed against it, for reasons ranging from Belarus' role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine to political persecutions. In a joint statement, the EU diplomat Kaja Kallas and EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos described the vote as a 'sham election' that was 'neither free, nor fair.' The US State Department also denounced the vote. 'Repression is born of weakness, not strength. The unprecedented measures to stifle any opposition make it clear that the Lukashenka regime fears its own people,' it said. But Lukashenka's leadership is less tied now with the ballot box than it is with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Minsk has battled to ensure it does not become directly embroiled in the conflict, although it has allowed Russian troops to launch attacks from its territory. 'Lukashenka has managed to be a co-aggressor against Ukraine, but has avoided sending troops to fight there. Belarusians like that,' says Tatsiana Kulakevich, an associate professor at the University of South Florida. 'For the last 30 years, the ideology of the Belarusian state has been 'Belarusians are a peaceful people'. It's so ingrained, this idea that we don't want to be 'like Ukraine'.' An unfavourable turn to the war for Putin will mean more pressure for Minsk to commit its own armed forces to the cause – or even the potential loss of Minsk's most important ally. Such scenarios are likely to leave Minsk increasingly hopeful for peace talks – particularly if Belarus can escape international ire in any final deal. 'If they forget about Belarus during peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, then Belarus is screwed because nothing will change,' says Kulakevich. 'People in Ukraine are paying for freedom with their lives. In Belarus, they are dying too – except hidden in jail.'
